ArtistCorps Alumni Stories: Charlie Witosky

Charlie Witosky is an alum of the School of Filmmaking (’18) and served in ArtistCorps during his fourth year. He is currently living and working in Los Angeles, and we recently had the chance to catch up with him over the phone.

What made you decide to serve in ArtistCorps?

It seemed like an interesting opportunity. I saw the posting on the school website and it seemed like a nice thing to do but I wasn’t sure what it was beyond that. I guess in the beginning it seemed like an interesting and altruistic thing to do.

Tell us about a moment from your service that really stands out to you.

There was a boy in one of the 5^th grade classes who didn’t like participating — not just in the ArtistCorps activities but in class at all. In fifth grade, he was often confused for a kindergartener because of his size, and I think that insecurity caused him to act out. He was combative with his teachers, smarted off to other students, and it was hard to engage him. A large portion of our service was to engage these kids and to get them to care about something and I was always working very hard to find something that would engage him.

One of the moments I got engagement and also what seemed like true interest from him was during a storytelling exercise that I’d devised. The students were asked to tell stories about their lives, whether those be true stories or made up stories, that were representative of some part of them. He told an incredibly, seemingly very personal story, and — whether or not it was true — he cared. He was a very guarded individual otherwise, and he opened up not just to his classmates but to himself.

How did that moment shape your perception on service or the communities you’re serving?

When you’re at UNCSA you’re very, very insulated. You don’t really see the rest of the community. When you participate in ArtistCorps you do in a very immediate way. In some circumstances, you encounter serious poverty. Sometimes we would hear stories from students who would tell us that they were bouncing from shelter to shelter or relative to relative because they didn’t have a permanent home. That’s a really, really hard thing to hear and it made you want to help. Even though we can always do more, with ArtistCorps I was at least able to create connections with these kids and they would tell me about how they were feeling on a day-to-day basis.

It would be presumptuous to say I had any large effect on them or the community but I do know that it was simply nice for them to have someone to talk to. Very few adults in their lives — either because they’re just trying to survive or they’re teachers teaching 36 students at a time — aren’t able just to listen to them a respond in a mature manner. They can tell their friends, but their friends don’t exactly understand what they’re going through unless they know exactly what they’re going through.

What was your biggest takeaway from serving in ArtistCorps?

There’s a lack of understanding in the world about what goes on in certain communities, starting with communities in economic exclusion. The amount of work and emotional strain that it takes for kids and adults  — but kids in particular — to survive those situations. People are working really hard to survive. Sometimes it looks like they’re not succeeding in a way that middle class or upper class people perceive as success or that they’re not doing any work. And that’s untrue and I saw why it’s untrue. 

The other community is teachers. No one really understands all that teachers do and how little they’re compensated for it — not just with salary but also with how much emotion they invest and how little response they often get from students, parents, sometimes administrators-- how much work they put into it and how little they get back. My biggest takeaway was deep understanding.

How has ArtistCorps influenced your life and work since you left service?

It has influenced my life in that I have become a more empathetic person. I now know how complicated people’s lives are, and often how little they show that on the exterior. When I talk to someone or run into a difficult situation or difficult person I try my hardest to be empathetic to their situation.

I work in the entertainment industry in television. My ultimate goal is to be a screenwriter, playwright, and essayist. I’d like to be able to write about my experience because it moved me in such extraordinary ways. Hopefully, one day I’ll have a large enough platform to talk about the remarkable effect — not just on others, but on yourself — that some form of long-term service and volunteering can have.

What are you up to now and what’s next?

Right now, I live in Los Angeles and I’ve worked in a variety of different assistant positions in different studios and networks. The first one was at Legendary Entertainment — some of their movies this past summer were "Skyscraper," "Mama Mia II," "BlacKKKlansman" — I worked there for a while then I moved over to Nickelodeon as a writer’s production assistant. Now I’m back at Legendary working on a show that’s going to be airing on Amazon as a writer’s production assistant. There’s a ladder you can climb to being a television writer and I’m on the first step on that ladder. It’s often very hard to get into this position and I’m very fortunate to have gotten it so early. Hopefully, what’s next is I stay working for writers either as a writer’s production assistant or assistant to writer/producers and I do this until eventually someone lets me write a television script.

Can you say what show you’re working on? 

I can! It’s called Carnival Row and it stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne and the first season will be released on Amazon sometime in 2019. That’s not me being coy. We really don’t know exactly when it’s going to be released.

Any closing thoughts?

I want to add a sincere thank you to Rebecca, Debby, all of the teachers I worked with, and the students in particular for allowing me to participate in AmeriCorps and ArtistCorps. Just, thank you.